Letter: Media obsession with terrorists is harmful

To the Editor:
Since the moment the rest of America was notified of the horrific Boston Marathon bombing, the media took one major focus: Who’s responsible?

Article after article was released, and the media manhunt even pushed some news outlets to inaccurately publish photos of innocent bystanders as the bombers.

Despite this frenzy, and thanks to the phenomenal police work done on the case, the hunt has ended. But sadly, the media’s attention to the bombers has just begun.

The media will not stop. Stories about every aspect of these men are already being published, and while the obsession claims to be in honor of the victims and their families, it serves only to push the victimized straight out of our minds.

Slowly, the public is becoming obsessed with these criminals, and in a very twisted way, the bombers have managed to achieve 2 goals instead of one: To ruin lives, and to become famous for it.

It has happened in the past and will continue to happen until the media stops the chain. The media publishes story after story about the “eccentric madman” and the public gets hooked. The media continues to give the public what they want, and public continue to read what is readily in front of them.

This cycle of attention is what motivates the criminals who commit horrific, high-profile crimes. It is what pushes them to commit those crimes on growing scales.

With the attention they receive, it makes sense that when tragedies occur, we know the name, even the life story, of the offender before the name of the victim.

One of the best qualities of the media in America today is that it informs the people almost instantly of a tragedy, and it keeps them informed throughout.

It is important for the media to report on the offender of a large scale crime, and it is important for them to report on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as he is brought to justice.

But it is not appropriate for him to be showcased as a notorious criminal.

People who commit these senseless atrocities should not be worth the media’s time to the point of excessive coverage. So why are they treated with the same attention as celebrities?